200,000 ‘will miss out on university places due to cuts’

More than 200,000 people will be denied university places this year because of cuts to higher education, vice-chancellors warned today.

College funding chiefs announced a 1.6 per cent real-terms reduction in the budget for teaching degree courses for the next academic year.

Capital funding, which covers building programmes, will be cut by 14.9 per cent.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is to axe more than £600 million from university and science budgets over the next few years, on top of £315 million savings this year.

But while the Government seeks to reduce the deficit caused by bailing out the banks, the recession has fuelled a surge in applications to university from school-leavers struggling to find work and adults who have lost their jobs.

Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said the cuts would make it impossible for colleges to meet growing the demand for courses.

Professor Steve Smith, the group's president, predicted that "well over 200,000" candidates would miss out this year.

He told the BBC: "Last year about 160,000 students who applied didn't end up going to university. This year we already know there are about another 75,000 applying. There will be a lot of students this year who do not get a place."

The budgets for teaching, research and building programmes for the next academic year were set out by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Its chief executive, Sir Alan Langlands, acknowledged the cuts would be "challenging". He said: "These are testing times but higher education has benefited from very substantial growth over the past 10 years, and we should continue to aim for the very best within available resources.

"We are doing all that we can to support excellence in teaching and research by keeping across-the-board reductions in core funding to a minimum."

Higher education minister David Lammy accused college bosses of "scaremongering" and insisted savings could be made without undermining standards of education.

He said: "Over the past decade the Government has invested record amounts in higher education — around 25 per cent more than 1997 — and there are now more students than ever before in our history attending university."